19 Mind-Bending Movies Like Inception

Christopher Nolan's 2010 sci-fi noir Inception is a dream movie (literally) for film buffs who love to have their minds bent by what they watch. But Inception will bend more than just your mind: It's famous for its topsy-turvy visuals, in which entire cityscapes twist and turn upside down before our eyes in a world of manipulated dreams whose outcomes affect reality.

Films like Inception bring up all kinds of questions — not just with their often confusing endings, innovative premises, and unconventional plot structures, but with the concerns they raise about how the mind (and even the universe) work. Fans of Inception will have a blast with the many films that have a lot of the same features as Nolan's instant classic. Because just about all of Nolan's other features also fit the bill and could secure a monopoly on this list, they aren't included. But suffice it to say that his entire filmography, from The Prestige to Memento, Interstellar to Tenet, is worth watching if you enjoyed Inception.

All of the following non-Nolan films poke at the nature of reality, especially to what extent it's manufactured by our own minds or worse, by forces outside of our control. And like Inception, there are action, sci-fi, and noir elements to most of them, while a few are more abstract, just like the world of dreams. So whatever you loved about Nolan's dreamscape, you just might find it in one of these films as well.

Memory, a central theme of 2004's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (written by surrealist legend Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry), sometimes occupies a space between reality and unreality. And all of that gets even blurrier when you start meddling with someone's memories, like the protagonists of the film, Joel and Clementine, a couple who has decided to erase their memories of each other.

Anyone who's ever dealt with a failed relationship can probably identify with the desire to just delete that experience from memory. By erasing their memories, though, Joel and Clementine create their own sort of false reality: A lie by omission is still a lie, as countless parents have warned.

But Eternal Sunshine's plot gets more complicated still when Joel, in the midst of his procedure, decides he doesn't want to forget Clementine. In order to preserve her memory, he begins modifying his own memories by "hiding her" in past experiences that didn't actually involve her. (It would be great if this worked for car keys.)

Like Inception, this cult classic teaches us how difficult it is to attempt to control the subconscious, or to separate it from the physical, conscious world. The best way to do this is not by trying to change or undermine what we experience, but to accept it — good, bad, and ugly.

While on one hand Inception has become something of the mainstream vanguard of "confusing movies," Under the Silver Lake had all the makings of an underrated cult classic when it came out in 2018, complete with polarized critical reviews that either lauded its originality or wrote it off as too cryptic (which, a true fan might argue, is a testament to originality in itself).

Plausibly very much like the film's target audience, its protagonist Sam, portrayed by Andrew Garfield, is a shiftless early-thirty-something who is more interested in the hidden meaning behind everyday occurrences than in meeting adult obligations. But a directionless protagonist couldn't be a more perfect fit for the plot of Under the Silver Lake, which soon takes off in all kinds of directions. Down these roads, Sam meets a series of seemingly interconnected characters that appear to be straight out of urban legend.

The film is abundant with conspiracy fodder, making it engaging (and amusing, in its own darkly humorous way) whether or not you're inclined to analyze it any deeper. If you choose to take the dive, you might resurface anywhere from the halls of the Hollywood elite to a cult's underground bunker.

If you were so inclined, you could think of the Matrix trilogy as a "reverse" Inception (down to its strikingly similar visuals): Instead of going into dreams, the trilogy begins with removing us from a non-reality and exposing it for what it is.

To quote Morpheus in the 1999 film that started it all, "The Matrix is everywhere." This statement is true in the world of the film, in which the Matrix constructs reality, and it's true in the modern entertainment industry, where its influence can be felt throughout TV and cinema, and reruns can be caught almost weekly on cable.

As in Inception, much of the action in The Matrix takes place in a shared subconscious world. However, it's not just the subconscious influences of each participant that Neo and his comrades have to contend with: the Matrix itself is defended by its own Agents, AI programs whose sole purpose is to take out anyone or anything who might threaten the simulation. Someone who knows it's a simulation, for example, presents an enormous threat to the system.

The conflict in The Matrix, then, much like Inception, is waged on two fronts, the subconscious and the real. But the consequences of actions in either realm can have direct effects on the other, creating the kind of intense sci-fi pressure that fans of either film will love.

If you've ever had a night when you had one strange dream after another with the vague feeling that they were all connected somehow, then you have a clue of what you're in for with the mood of Eyes Wide Shut, which follows Bill, played by Tom Cruise, through a series of bizarre encounters around New York City. Like many of Stanley Kubrick's works, this 1999 film has the ethereal quality of a dream.

But even if you're prepared to drift from one vignette to another, nothing we could say will really prepare you for the strange things that happen in each one. It's an erotic psychological mystery, but that doesn't simply mean that everyone is walking around naked: Characters appear in costume (for various reasons) about as often as they appear nude. The continuous shots in these scenes makes each feel like a self-contained world.

From secret societies to costume shops, the most important character in this movie is the stranger — because there's a stranger in everyone you meet, from the spouse you've known for years to the anonymous allure of a masked sex worker or the vaguely familiar face in your dreams. The unknown is the basis of fantasy and eroticism, so the act of obscuring (metaphorically, closing your eyes) can actually be eye-opening. Following the thread of crime, mystery, and passion in Eyes Wide Shut is as enjoyable as it is in Inception.

Even though we're not supposed to talk about it, that's exactly what critics and audiences did with Fight Club long after its 1999 release. Many were afraid of the legacy it would have, like the copycat issues following the release of A Clockwork Orange in 1971. The film certainly had its fair share of cultural impact, but this mostly consisted of quotability and influence on the entertainment industry — much like Inception or The Matrix.

Unlike similar reality-bending films that leave things more ambiguous, however, Fight Club's twist relies on clearly drawing the line between what's real and what's not — but only after leading the viewer completely astray first. And there's no sci-fi involved in this misdirection, just the subjectivity of an unreliable Narrator (as the main character is known) who tells us the story of his volatile new "frenemy" Tyler Durden.

From the start, the Narrator reveals that he can't always be trusted, adopting different aliases and posing as a sufferer of various diseases in the hopes of getting support for his chronic insomnia. In a way, this early introduction gives us all the information we would need to guess at the ending — but we're in the Narrator's reality, not ours, so we have to wait to see it unfold.

Funnily enough, the Narrator is not misleading us on purpose: The crucial elements of the story happen when he believes he's sleeping. Hear that, Inception fans?

Though déjà vu is a common quality of dreams, Synecdoche, New York will seem familiar for a truly rational reason: It's another brainchild from the mind of Charlie Kaufman, but this time coming to us as his 2008 directorial debut. In his review for this film, the legendary critic Roger Ebert comments that Kaufman really has "only one plot, how the mind negotiates with reality, fantasy, hallucination, desire and dreams." If that doesn't scream the name of every Inception fan, what will?

But in case you're not convinced, the postmodern vibe of Synecdoche (one character lives in a house that is perpetually on fire) will change your mind in a heartbeat. "Meta" doesn't even begin to describe it. It's more than a dream within a dream or a film about a film: You can't resurface with a "kick." You'll be completely sucked in alongside central character Caden, brought to life in an aching performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman, as he dives deeper and deeper into his life's work: his life.

A theater director, Caden wants to create something as brutally honest as possible, and his quest for realism increasingly blurs the line between imagination and reality due to the crushing weight of his own personal struggles. As years go by, he adds layer upon layer to the model of reality he has built. Synecdoche is like being trapped in a hall of mirrors, something dream-within-a-dream enthusiasts will go nuts for (although hopefully not literally).

Almost everyone dreams about being a movie star as a kid, but no one wants to do it the way Truman Burbank did it in The Truman Show in 1998: Without even knowing it, essentially living as a specimen in a human zoo. (Though it would probably be awesome to be an avid viewer, because your favorite show would be on 24 hours a day!)

The Truman Show starring Truman Burbank presents a fascinating paradox: its "executive producer," Christof, wants to give audiences an everyman they can relate to, one whose personality and reactions are authentic... But every facet of Truman's life is determined by what will do well in the ratings, so how authentic can any of it be?

As Truman slowly begins to discover what's amiss in his life on Seahaven Island and thus jeopardize the show, ironically, this is the first time Truman's true personality and motivations begin to shine through.

The tug of war between the production's carefully constructed world and Truman's emerging will makes for suspense and laughs in equal measure. As with Inception, we're dealing with a manipulated version of reality that's as subjective as a single person's experience.

Both Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island and Nolan's Inception were ranked among the top ten films of 2010 by the National Board of Review. Both of them starred Leonardo DiCaprio — and in both of his roles, his character is haunted by the loss of his wife, and the grip she has on him, even if only psychological, has palpable effects on the plot. And of course, both of these films deal with the subjectivity of the realities created by our minds.

DiCaprio is no stranger to acting in movies that even he doesn't understand, and there's a lot about Shutter Island that encourages us to think twice. In Inception, much of the action revolves around the psychological state of DiCaprio's character, just like in Shutter Island. The difference is that in the former, DiCaprio's character has mostly full awareness and control of when and how he moves from reality to his mind, even if he can't always control how his memories and mental state will affect him. In general, we can tell which is which (even if it takes some deducing).

In Shutter Island, however... well, the less you know going in, the better. Suffice it to say that no one could have blamed DiCaprio if he spent some time questioning the nature of reality while he was filming Inception and Shutter Island.

If you go by the most literal definition, 2019's Vivarium is about "a place for life." But in practice, it's closer to the opposite for the poor couple at the center of the film, who find themselves trapped in Number 9 of a creepy endless neighborhood of identical houses known as Yonder. But at least they've got their kid... the creepy humanoid child that they must raise in order to be released.

If you're a fan of Inception, chances are you like pieces of media that are left somewhat open to interpretation. Vivarium is absolutely one of them: Even the directors encourage people to filter the film through their own culture and experience. Depending on your background, it might say any number of things to you about desire, society, family, tradition, or life.

That's a pretty broad scope for a movie that primarily takes place in the claustrophobic confines of a single, absurdly sterile house. Everything that happens in this place is carefully controlled and calculated, and there is no possibility for escape. For millennials especially, this could tap into a very specific and deep-rooted fear for their lives — not a fear of death, but a literal fear for how their lives might turn out.

You might leave this film questioning what you really want (like whether you want to watch a film like that ever again). For thrill-seeking filmgoers, it could be exactly the unnerving experience you're looking for.